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The Dangers of Social Media As Told by the Social Dilemma: Direct Media Effects and Cinematic Videogame Aesthetics

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The Dangers of Social Media As Told by the Social Dilemma: Direct Media Effects and Cinematic Videogame Aesthetics THE DANGERS OF SOCIAL MEDIA AS TOLD BY THE SOCIAL DILEMMA: DIRECT MEDIA EFFECTS AND CINEMATIC VIDEOGAME AESTHETICS LAURA ÁLVAREZ TRIGO INSTITUTO FRANKLIN–UAH The Social Dilemma is a Netflix docudrama directed by Jeff Orlowski and released in September 2020. The film aims to convey the dangers of careless use of technology, the tech industry’s current issues with privacy regulations, and society’s unhealthy de- pendency on social media platforms that, by enforcing addiction, prevent users from developing real interpersonal relationships. The film conveys these messages by em- ploying two central narrative modes: firstly, interviews with experts within the tech- nology industry, and second, a fictional narrative that exemplifies the dire conse- quences of our everyday mindless use of social media. The docudrama as a genre is first and foremost a narrative of persuasion. Rather than representing reality its “basic purpose is to envelop us in the experience of its story. The overall thrust of docudrama is neither exposition nor logical argumentation, but persuasion” (Lipkin 2002, ix). The genre often entails persuasive discourse about moral implications and audiences tend to respond differently to a story than they would to argumentation—with the latter being characteristic of documentary style. Ultimately, docudrama is a strategy that, “at its most powerful, convinces us that it is properly both logical and emotional to associate cinematic proximity with moral truth” (Lipkin 2002, 31). Keeping this in mind and focusing on the fictionalized sections in The Social Di- lemma, this article shows how, in order to construct its persuasive message, this docu- drama establishes a storyline that relies on a traditional understanding of direct media effects, as well as on a cinematic approach inspired by videogame narratives. Hence, 1 JUNE 2021 POPMEC RESEARCH BLOG «» POPMEC.HYPOTHESES.ORG ISSN 2660-8839 the main objective of this article is to analyze how the film, thanks to the aforemen- tioned strategies, manages to build a horror story that serves to manipulate audiences in a way not dissimilar to the social media companies it condemns. A WORD FROM THE EXPERTS In order to provide some context, it is worth taking a closer look at the non-fictional sections of the film before delving into its fictional story. The Social Dilemma shows interviews with current and former Silicon Valley employees (from companies such as Google, Firefox, Instagram, and Facebook, among others). They express concern both about the lack of security, and about the economic interests that unethically drive the decisions of technological companies. All of these celebrated tech engineers insist throughout the film that, as they were working on developing algorithms for these companies, they were completely unable to foresee the appalling state of affairs that we are facing these days as regards the abusive and unethical behavior of big tech corporations. Many of the interviewees argue that these companies were doing good things around the world. However, being mere employees, they were, as former Face- book and Pinterest executive Tim Kendall puts it, “naïve about the flip side of the coin” (Orlowski 2020, 00:02:15-00:03:00). When directly asked what the problem is, the inter- viewees are shown averting their gazes and chuckling inconspicuously, unable to an- swer the question. For instance, Lynn Fox asserts that there is “no one bad guy” (00:03:00-00:03:20). The most important thing that the director and producers achieve by having these interviews structure and shape the narrative is to set “the boundaries of who gets to participate in these discussions” (Z.M.I. 2020). In this way, the film never opens up the conversation to the public and the users. Thus, it gets dangerously close to a persuasive and uncritical lecture from insiders who have coincidentally prof- ited from the very practices they criticize (Z.M.I. 2020). The central (non-fictional) character that the narrative follows is Tristan Harris. He is the former Google Design Ethicist, as well as the cofounder of the Center for Hu- mane Technology, which was established as an independent nonprofit organization in 2018. The Center counts among its “founding allies, key advisors and community” cofounders and senior managers from companies such as Apple, Lyft, Pinterest, and Facebook. Apart from Harris and various other Silicon Valley current and former em- ployees, there is another key member of this Center and interviewee in the docudrama: Shoshana Zuboff, author of The Age of Surveillance Capitalism (2019). Surveillance cap- italism is, according to Zubbof, a new capitalist model shaped by the business practices of technological companies (Zubbof 2019). She is also a member of the Real Facebook Oversight Board, which was created to act independently from Facebook fearing that their inside board would not be sufficient to fight against current threats to the United States’ democracy (Solon 2020). Furthermore, the aforementioned Center for Humane 2 JUNE 2021 POPMEC RESEARCH BLOG «» POPMEC.HYPOTHESES.ORG ISSN 2660-8839 Technology presents its objectives regarding policy through the four areas of asym- metric power highlighted in Zuboff’s latest book. Evgeny Morozov, researcher on technology and politics, published a critique of Zuboff’s book soon after it came out. He foregrounds how her work fails to discuss the implications, durability, and importance of surveillance capitalism as a model. Moro- zov offers a breakdown of Zuboff’s basic premises carefully questioning each propo- sition. He argues that what Zuboff offers is ultimately an “impossible to falsify” tau- tology: “surveillance capitalists engage in surveillance capitalism because this is what the imperatives of surveillance capitalism demand” (Morozov 2019). However, he rea- sons, there is an easier explanation to the motivation behind data collection than the desire to control everybody’s behavior through advertising. Namely, that “tech firms, like all firms, are driven by the need to assure long-term profitability” (Morozov 2019). The lack of critical discussion surrounding the implications of any capitalist model (not only surveillance capitalism) can be partially elucidated in The Social Dilemma as the docudrama works to showcase Zuboff’s work. This is not to say that the practices of social media corporations are not nefarious. On the contrary, and as Morozov’s pre- vious criticism of the industry highlights, the issues that these insiders point out do not provide the public with the necessary critical and political tools to confront these companies’ practices. As a sensationalist documentary, it does not concern itself with suggesting a productive way to engage with the numerous ethical problems that social media companies present. However, by virtue of its manipulative nature, audiences are often left with the feeling of having learnt all they should about the issue and that the only possible reaction is to fear these technologies. DIRECT MEDIA EFFECTS The fictional segments in the docudrama follow a short period in the lives of a middle- class average American family. These sections, reminiscent of a Black Mirror episode, are included primarily to portray the effects that social media addiction can potentially have on teens and pre-teens. The negative effects of social media on teenagers are ev- ident in the two younger siblings. Isla, the youngest, is the first one to show signs of addiction as she is sitting on the couch, slowly scrolling through an Instagram-like feed while ignoring her mother, who has to repeatedly ask her to set the table. This occurs right after an intradiegetic news report on television warning about social me- dia addiction. The dissenting voice is seen in the older daughter. She does not have a cellphone, criticizes the fact that her younger sister—who is only eleven years old— has one, and adamantly confronts her brother about how connecting through phones and social media is “not real connection” (Orlowski 2020, 00:4:45–00:05:06). Named Cassandra, she is the one that truly sees what is going on and foresees the dire future 3 JUNE 2021 POPMEC RESEARCH BLOG «» POPMEC.HYPOTHESES.ORG ISSN 2660-8839 that the interviewees in the film, working from the inside in powerful technological companies, were not able to predict. The film focuses on how much social media can influence their decision-making, damage their capacity to create healthy interpersonal relationships, and negatively af- fect their image and self-worth. Notably, there is a fairly extended scene—which moves back and forth between the fictional narrative and the interviews—centered on how worried experts are about children (especially about young pre-teen girls) by showing the increase in self-harm, hospitalizations, and suicide rates in this segment of the population in the past twelve years. All these fears are embodied in the younger child, Isla, with images of statics cutting back to her crying in the mirror after getting a negative comment about her appearance online. Tim Harris argues that, in the past, “when children watched Saturday morning cartoons, we cared about protecting [them]” (Orlowski 2020, 38:00-45:00). His statement implies that this is not the case now and that, when it comes to social media and technology use, society does not care about their young anymore. One of the key discussions among media scholars throughout the 20th century was the debate over how strong media effects could be. Experts are now opening up those conversations
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